Ventings from a guy with an unhealthy interest in budgets, policy, the dismal science, life in the Upper Midwest, and brilliant beverages.

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Charlie Pierce on last night's GOP debacle

I caught bits and pieces of the GOP's shitshow of a debate in South Carolina last night (state motto: "Our proudest moment was in 1861!"). But I'll leave it to a much better writer than I to sum up just how bad this was, and how we've descended to this point in our politics. Charlie Pierce, take it away!

Tell me truly—how does that spectacle not destroy the credibility of the Republican Party for at least a decade?

How does that freak show not blow up the party's claim to have serious policies to help govern the country? How does that carnival of unimaginative invective add up to a governing philosophy? How does that massive, chewy clusterfck add up to a single rational moment of human thought? I don't care if these guys believe in evolution or not, but they at least should try to demonstrate while they're on TV that, somehow, we've come a respectable distance as a species since we tottered out of Olduvai Gorge. I've seen better organized riots. I've heard more coherent dialogue from cats mating in an alley. I once heard a squirrel being eaten by a coyote. The squirrel had better manners while it was being devoured, and was better spoken besides. Christ above, somebody separate these clowns before they hurt their brains some more. Tailgunner Ted Cruz said more than he knows, not least because he doesn't know what "literally" means.

And the way Charlie ends the piece illustrates why he is one of the few people left in this country that does actual political journalism. Pierce points the finger at a main culprit for this ridiculous spectacle- a national media that refuses to tell the American people the truth about this ridiculous wrecking crew.

There was nobody who did well. This was a debate in which obvious fact—George W. Bush was president on September 11, 2001—was booed from the cheap seats and derided from the other people on stage. This was a debate in which Donald J. Trump was on the side of empirical reality, so much the worse for empirical reality. This was a debate in which Young Marco Rubio promised to expand the Republican party by destroying marriage equality and forcing a young woman to carry her rapist's baby to term. Trump (and empirical reality) got heckled. Rubio got cheered. Wildly. Nobody commented on the obvious disconnect from physical reality.

One of these guys has to win the Republican nomination. That's the reason why the process through which they have to haul themselves, and the fact that their party has lost its mind, matters. That's why ignoring the spectacle of what actually happened on Saturday night is a disservice to journalism and to the country. It's not Trump, boys.

It's the rest of y'all.

We've learned the hard way in Wisconsin that most media will not give the straight facts about issues unless the public hammers them and reminds others of the reality they are choosing not to report. It's a big reason the amount of posts I started writing went way up starting 5 years ago this month, when Gov Walker first "dropped the bomb", and our state's media promptly dropped the ball in its responsibilities to the public. And we need to do it again as this destructive GOP will try to block President Obama from performing his Constitutional right of nominating a Supreme Court justice and performing his duties as president for the last 11 months he is in office, because you know the DC-based media will want to shrug and say "President Obama says the sky is blue, the GOP says the sky is green," and leave the independent facts out of their stories. Don't let them get away with it.

This GOP crew deserves to get its ass beat into oblivion over the next 9 months of elections, and we can start by voting in the State Supreme Court primary this Tuesday, and remove Ms. Rebecca Bradley (Foundation) from the position Scott Walker appointed her unqualified, foolish self to. And yes, I'd love to see some media try to have Walker explain why it's OK for him to appoint one of his buddies for a few months when a state Supreme Court Justice dies, but it's not OK for President Obama to do the same for SCOTUS.

Not that I'd expect much in terms of coherence from Scotty. After all, this guy was such a clown that he couldn't even last 3 months on the same stage with the dingbats that were making fools of themselves in South Carolina last night.

About Me

This cat's a 40-something libation-enjoying gabber still trying to do the right thing. Watch his crazy adventures as he works and stumbles his way through the great world of public service in the Age of Fitzwalkerstan, while keeping tabs on Bucky Badger and the next Great Depression. I'm told I'm big in Oshkosh.